• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, January 30, 2014

How are agencies staying afloat in an ever deeper sea of social data? Definitely not by sharing the challenge that is data overload with clients, according to Sean Black, Managing Partner and Group Digital Director at Mediacom. “They don’t want to hear about ‘big data,’” Black told attendees of MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit on Thursday. Rather, connecting with clients is all about “humanizing” the data, said Jack Harvey, EVP of Partnerships at Gnip, a social media API aggregation firm. And, Anne Czernek, Senior Research Analyst at Millward Brown, couldn’t agree more. “I’m a giant dork, so I love data, but it’s important to consider the human element,” she said on Thursday. ““How does [a particular insight] impact my target audience.” What’s more, “That’s where the potential for creativity comes in,” Czernek noted.